I believe there are several virii out in the world that look for and try to shut down or erase NAV. And here we thought they were a bad thing! I haven't used it for years, ever since I had the devil's own time trying to get the corporate version off my computer after I changed jobs.
Re:At least it won't work for a drive-by cloning
on
Hackers Clone E-Passport
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· Score: 2, Interesting
According to TFA, in order to read the data from the passport you have to enter a key printed in the passport itself. This will at least prevent a surrepetitious cloning while sitting in an airport chair (like the guys who cloned the Mobil SpeedPass keytags.)
So I can't simply read the information and then brute force the key? One presumes that all somebody needs is to get their hands on one or more of these passports, figure out the key schema, and then write a program to try to crack the RFID information using the most likely keys.
Security of passports is nebulous at best, even without the RFID technology.
Just try using Pledge. I actually did this with scratches on my glasses (the lenses are plastic) and it works pretty well. Note: you'll probably have to do it again in the future, as I'm not sure how long it will last on the CD.
This exploit is OS independent. How is this in any way indicative of Mac user smugness? Are they so smug that they made Windows and Linux boxes explotable too?
No, I think they're really talking about the attitude that some, I say some Mac users have that somehow their machines and OS are invulnerable, the computer equivalent of Fort Knox. I find that people who spend too much time bragging about something often get their comeuppance when someone else more fanatical decides to prove them wrong. Yes, Macs have a great security history, but with the Internet andf the number of enterprising hackers that inhabit it, it's only a matter of time before someone decides to hand Mac users something they were not anticipating.
But they WERE given a huge helping hand here... They now know that a vulnerability exists, that it's possible on 3 different platforms, and that that it deals with wireless drivers in 'connect to anything' mode. Wow. If I had just a bit more ambition and a tad more skill, I'd be looking for that myself to have some fun with it. Anyone more skilled (and inclined) than me is already working on it. Expect to see results within a week from some blowhard that can't keep his mouth shut.
Well, this is not quite an exploit you can drive a Mack truck through, but it is pretty serious. The fact is anyone who wants to make use of such exploits has already been working on it, and this might prove to be another piece in the puzzle they've been working through. There are no doubt hardware hackers who've thought of this, and the only useful bit to them is that they can use it to attack multiple platforms.
Admittedly, PCs are pretty lame in the design department, though I frankly have never been enamored of Macs either, though at least they trended away from the beige-gray box. Nowadays you can get beautified PCs (can we say Alienware?) and perhaps eventually there will be some renaissance in case design.
Having said all that, in the end if the OS sucks, is hard to use, or makes the machine unworkable, no amount of cool paint jobs or weird shapes are going to make people any happier about Vista.
Make managers get off their lazy butts and actually peek in on their staff at work once in a while, just to "check up on things." Managers tend to become rooted to their desks and assume that the emails they receive from workers contain the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. While a good manager lets his/her employees get about their job, they never let the employees run the show. An IT department should be not just a reflection of good work, but good management.
And of course, they could wear leather outfits, hoods, and carry whips to keep people in line... fear can be a great motivator.
The general consumer has no say whatsoever in this.
Too true. Ok, so you don't like Comcast's stand on neutrality; are going to go to Verizon? Bell South? The consumer is a chicken in a lair of wolves.
Net Neutrality boils down to a clash of the titans: pipe providers vs. content providers. Both have buckets of cash and its doubtful that this grudge match is going to resolve much. You know that in a non-neutral world, Google will simply run its own fiber everywhere and thumb its nose at the telecoms.
If you pay more and subscribe, you get more services! It's criminal!;)
Services? What are these "services" of which you speak? Other than getting to nip a few ads, see upcoming stories so I can pre-prepare my rants, and the extra karma point, there aren't many services I enjoy as a subscriber that I can't live without. I subscribe to support Slashdot and help keep it running. Plus I write the contribution off on my taxes... oh wait...
How about comparing both to DVD as well? I'd sure like to know why I am expected to pay 50% more for a blue-ray version of a movie than a regular DVD version.
I think that would be the fairer test -- rather than comparing Blu-Ray to HD DVD directly, compare each to a "standard" DVD. Of course, what makes this difficult is the fact that the players are all going to vary so much. You need a test rig that could take the direct output of the disk read and put it through some kind of standard processor, so that the comparison could be level.
They're using two different players. Doesn't that invalidate this test?
Unless there is a player out there that supports both formats, no. Mind you, it mind be far easier to build a machine to play either format than building a VCR that could play both VHS and Beta.
If the speculation and news reports prove correct, AOL's changes would be ambitious indeed. But will they go far enough, and is it possible for AOL to regain its past heft? "Will the advertising revenue ever replace dial-up?" says Bonner. "I'm not sure when and if that will ever happen. In the dial-up world, you could be all things to everybody--that worked. Now AOL needs to focus." Adds Helfstein: "The question is: What can AOL do for customers that can convince you to stop using Google or Yahoo as your homepage?"
It's safe to say that AOL has died, but the body doesn't know it yet. At one time it was a lot of people's portal to the Internet, especially in the pre-DSL days, but now I can't honestly understand why anyone keeps it. With on-demand Internet connections and browsers readily available, there's no need for this cheesy portal application, unless you're stuck using dial-up, but those numbers continue to fall rapidly.
AOL never saw the forest for the trees -- popularizing the Internet forced up connection speeds and access, and eventually they were outstripped by Yahoo, Google, and everyone else.People got tired of being kicked off and having to log back on, or paying too much on their phone bill because their "local" number was anything but. Once AOL had a large enough subscriber base, and once all those folks got a taste of the true Internet, they made demands that AOL couldn't meet, and so now they are soon to be relegated to the dustbin of history. There may come a time when people won't remember what the "A" in AIM stands for, and then AOL will be truly gone.
One would hope that GL harkens back to his days as a struggling independent film-maker and gives the guy a pass. However, he is now cast in the role of studio exec and he may not be happy to hear of such a thing, especially where he receives no cut.
Because if you see images of children bleeding, perhaps you wouldn't support the war. Perhaps you'd stop the shipment of arms, perhaps stop sending them $3 billion a year, or stop the latest shipment of $120 million worth of fighter jet fuel, or cancel the shipment of cluster bombs.
And perhaps if instead of defacing the NASA website, which is probably only of intrest a small minority of the population in the United States they instead sent the image to CNN, MSNBC, Reuters, etc., it would get more play and might actually change some opinion.
Oh, well, if it's illegal. Gee, I guess that means that the administration will have to stop spying on Americans and Israel will have to stop colonizing land conquered in war. And maybe, while we're all so hopped up on obeying the law, we can all start observing the speed limit.
Well, either we're going to start coming to terms with laws being broken, or we're going to sit back and say "Gee, that's a shame." Where do you think the war in Iraq came from? It came from the fact that we in America have become lackadaisical about law and its enforcement. If the American people are really and truly outraged about what's happening in Iraq, then how come we're not seeing the level of protest we saw in Vietnam? How come there are not daily demonstrations in front of the White house by hundreds of thousands? How come the people have not held the President accoutnable for the mistakes he has made?
This whole thing is symptomatic of a greater evil in this country -- complacency. We elect people and don't follow their actions to make sure they're doing we want. We don't hold them to account when they do things we know are wrong. We do not vote them out of office even when they are doing a horrible job. And then this complacency spreads to other things, and pretty soon we hear "It's all right, they did it for a good cause."
Maybe we should all start obeying the speed limit. Each individual has the capacity to obey or flaut the law. It shouldn't require enforcement, but it does, because our society is increasingly filled with people in positions of power in business and government who do not feel the law applies to them, and that is because we have stopped making people accountable for their own actions.
If the defacement had consisted of pasting a star trek logo on the side of the space shuttle, you would never have made that comment.
Wrong. Defaceing something is a violation of the law. I don't need to see what some moron did to know it's wrong, and I certainly don't want the guy pasting it in his scrapbook and being emboldened because he got some cheap and free publicity for his illegal act. Same way I wish the news media in Los Angeles would stop following car chases -- it takes something dangerous and gives it creedence. There's no need for it.
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Obi-Wan Kenobi looks pained.
Luke: What's wrong?
Obi-Wan: I felt a great disturbance in The Force, as if millions of voices cried out in terror. I fear something terrible has happened.
I believe there are several virii out in the world that look for and try to shut down or erase NAV. And here we thought they were a bad thing! I haven't used it for years, ever since I had the devil's own time trying to get the corporate version off my computer after I changed jobs.
So I can't simply read the information and then brute force the key? One presumes that all somebody needs is to get their hands on one or more of these passports, figure out the key schema, and then write a program to try to crack the RFID information using the most likely keys.
Security of passports is nebulous at best, even without the RFID technology.
Just try using Pledge. I actually did this with scratches on my glasses (the lenses are plastic) and it works pretty well. Note: you'll probably have to do it again in the future, as I'm not sure how long it will last on the CD.
No, I think they're really talking about the attitude that some, I say some Mac users have that somehow their machines and OS are invulnerable, the computer equivalent of Fort Knox. I find that people who spend too much time bragging about something often get their comeuppance when someone else more fanatical decides to prove them wrong. Yes, Macs have a great security history, but with the Internet andf the number of enterprising hackers that inhabit it, it's only a matter of time before someone decides to hand Mac users something they were not anticipating.
Many will begin by saying "This is not a virus" or noting you need proximity to take advantage of this flaw.
Well, they would be saying that, if someone hadn't gone and corrupted their MacBooks via wireless exploit...
Well, this is not quite an exploit you can drive a Mack truck through, but it is pretty serious. The fact is anyone who wants to make use of such exploits has already been working on it, and this might prove to be another piece in the puzzle they've been working through. There are no doubt hardware hackers who've thought of this, and the only useful bit to them is that they can use it to attack multiple platforms.
Admittedly, PCs are pretty lame in the design department, though I frankly have never been enamored of Macs either, though at least they trended away from the beige-gray box. Nowadays you can get beautified PCs (can we say Alienware?) and perhaps eventually there will be some renaissance in case design.
Having said all that, in the end if the OS sucks, is hard to use, or makes the machine unworkable, no amount of cool paint jobs or weird shapes are going to make people any happier about Vista.
What if you're a reporter for "High Times?"
Make managers get off their lazy butts and actually peek in on their staff at work once in a while, just to "check up on things." Managers tend to become rooted to their desks and assume that the emails they receive from workers contain the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. While a good manager lets his/her employees get about their job, they never let the employees run the show. An IT department should be not just a reflection of good work, but good management.
And of course, they could wear leather outfits, hoods, and carry whips to keep people in line... fear can be a great motivator.
...I'd rather scratch me 'X' on a piece of pay-pur!! Yaaaaarrrrrhhhhh!!!!
This message brough to you by the Pirate Party!
The general consumer has no say whatsoever in this.
Too true. Ok, so you don't like Comcast's stand on neutrality; are going to go to Verizon? Bell South? The consumer is a chicken in a lair of wolves.
Net Neutrality boils down to a clash of the titans: pipe providers vs. content providers. Both have buckets of cash and its doubtful that this grudge match is going to resolve much. You know that in a non-neutral world, Google will simply run its own fiber everywhere and thumb its nose at the telecoms.
If you pay more and subscribe, you get more services! It's criminal! ;)
Services? What are these "services" of which you speak? Other than getting to nip a few ads, see upcoming stories so I can pre-prepare my rants, and the extra karma point, there aren't many services I enjoy as a subscriber that I can't live without. I subscribe to support Slashdot and help keep it running. Plus I write the contribution off on my taxes... oh wait...
After all, that's where everybody keeps their porn.
I think that would be the fairer test -- rather than comparing Blu-Ray to HD DVD directly, compare each to a "standard" DVD. Of course, what makes this difficult is the fact that the players are all going to vary so much. You need a test rig that could take the direct output of the disk read and put it through some kind of standard processor, so that the comparison could be level.
They're using two different players. Doesn't that invalidate this test?
Unless there is a player out there that supports both formats, no. Mind you, it mind be far easier to build a machine to play either format than building a VCR that could play both VHS and Beta.
It's safe to say that AOL has died, but the body doesn't know it yet. At one time it was a lot of people's portal to the Internet, especially in the pre-DSL days, but now I can't honestly understand why anyone keeps it. With on-demand Internet connections and browsers readily available, there's no need for this cheesy portal application, unless you're stuck using dial-up, but those numbers continue to fall rapidly.
AOL never saw the forest for the trees -- popularizing the Internet forced up connection speeds and access, and eventually they were outstripped by Yahoo, Google, and everyone else.People got tired of being kicked off and having to log back on, or paying too much on their phone bill because their "local" number was anything but. Once AOL had a large enough subscriber base, and once all those folks got a taste of the true Internet, they made demands that AOL couldn't meet, and so now they are soon to be relegated to the dustbin of history. There may come a time when people won't remember what the "A" in AIM stands for, and then AOL will be truly gone.
And 99% of Hollywood films suck. Coincidence?
And of course, Star Wars itself was not entriely a new idea, either.
One would hope that GL harkens back to his days as a struggling independent film-maker and gives the guy a pass. However, he is now cast in the role of studio exec and he may not be happy to hear of such a thing, especially where he receives no cut.
Always in motion is the future.
"Help, help, come see the vviolence in the system... help, help, I'm being repressed!!!"
And perhaps if instead of defacing the NASA website, which is probably only of intrest a small minority of the population in the United States they instead sent the image to CNN, MSNBC, Reuters, etc., it would get more play and might actually change some opinion.
Do not confuse the method with the message.
Well, either we're going to start coming to terms with laws being broken, or we're going to sit back and say "Gee, that's a shame." Where do you think the war in Iraq came from? It came from the fact that we in America have become lackadaisical about law and its enforcement. If the American people are really and truly outraged about what's happening in Iraq, then how come we're not seeing the level of protest we saw in Vietnam? How come there are not daily demonstrations in front of the White house by hundreds of thousands? How come the people have not held the President accoutnable for the mistakes he has made?
This whole thing is symptomatic of a greater evil in this country -- complacency. We elect people and don't follow their actions to make sure they're doing we want. We don't hold them to account when they do things we know are wrong. We do not vote them out of office even when they are doing a horrible job. And then this complacency spreads to other things, and pretty soon we hear "It's all right, they did it for a good cause."
Maybe we should all start obeying the speed limit. Each individual has the capacity to obey or flaut the law. It shouldn't require enforcement, but it does, because our society is increasingly filled with people in positions of power in business and government who do not feel the law applies to them, and that is because we have stopped making people accountable for their own actions.
That's what I want: accountability.
As a matter of interest, which public and legal forum would you suggest that the people of Lebanon chose?
How about this one?Wrong. Defaceing something is a violation of the law. I don't need to see what some moron did to know it's wrong, and I certainly don't want the guy pasting it in his scrapbook and being emboldened because he got some cheap and free publicity for his illegal act. Same way I wish the news media in Los Angeles would stop following car chases -- it takes something dangerous and gives it creedence. There's no need for it.